Things that Petunia could never say
by bangwolf
Summary: Despite how surely she claims it, she never hated Harry Potter in the beginning. When the chubby baby with dark tufts of hair and a jagged lightning scar on his forehead landed on her doorstep, she desperately wanted to hate him. Instead, she loved him as her own.


1\. Petunia was completely jealous of her little sister and in her mind, it was completely justified. Every year, the Evans family would send their youngest daughter off, steam from the Hogwarts Express thick in the air as they waved their goodbyes. Mirth and joy filled the platform, children's heads thrown back in glee, but Petunia stood silent with a sinking feeling in her stomach. Hot jealousy bubbled up in her, forming a thick lump in the back of her throat. A tight smile plastered on her face as she waved her sister off, she watched as Lily disappeared in a flash of red hair as she boarded the train.

Lily lived her strange life far away from their parents, punctuated with reports filled with "outstanding"s and celebratory family dinners in the holidays, but Petunia's own mistakes happened right under her parent's watchful gaze. While she learned needlework and english and history in a secluded pocket of Suburbia, Lily waved her wand and rode broomsticks. Her parents admonished her as she struggled with tedious sums and equations and essays and poetry, drifting off into "if only.."s and dreamy half sentences about her sister.

In spite of herself, every day, Petunia rose early in hopes that her Hogwarts acceptance letter might fly through the mail slot.

But it never came.

As each day passed, her resentment for Lily grew, a paralysing envy which burned white-hot inside her.

2\. She misses her infuriatingly perfect, impossibly clever and annoyingly witty little sister. She misses her blazing red hair and her determined gaze, her brow furrowed in defiance. But she'll never, ever admit it to anyone else.

3\. On the day that Harry Potter arrived on her doorstop, the thing that upset Petunia most was that she hadn't ever had the chance to let Lily know just how much she had always loved her. Vernon's red-faced mutterings about "having enough mouths to feed" and incensed speeches about how he had enough burden hurt her more than anything. She busied herself in housework and gardening but her mind couldn't help drifting to how Albus Dumbledore didn't even bother to knock on the door to tell her the bad news to her face. Her only consolation was an old bit of parchment she had clung onto for years, now crumpled and faded with age. She had read the words over and over again, a strange, secret ritual she kept every other night, Vernon snoring heavily into the pillow next to her. The night was the only time she allowed herself to think of Lily. She often slipped into dreams of her little sister and her side by side, soaring through crystal clear blue sky on matching brooms, wands brandished.

4\. At only thirteen years old, she had her heart broken for the first time. With tears in her eyes, she watched Albus Dumbledore whisk her sister far way to where she was a princess in a magic castle. Away to a place where dungeons and dragons and witches and wizards existed. Hope in her heart, she stuck a dozen stamps (she wasn't sure how many it would take to get to Hogwarts) to an envelope which encased a letter begging for him to take her too. Before she threw his reply into the fireplace, a tear of angry indignation smudged the spectacular cursive font where he signed his name.

5\. Every so often, her thoughts will drift to a strange death on the news and her stomach will drop. The strange witches and wizards that conjure cups of tea and appear out of fireplaces fill her up with an inexplicable feeling. How could she ever protect Vernon or Dudley if they came for them? Lily and her magic couldn't protect James.

She sometimes wakes up in a cold sweat, Lily's tall tales of Azkaban and dark wizards dancing around in her head dangerously. At times like this, she pours herself a small glass of the strange wedding gift Lily and James had given her, she steadies herself before she makes breakfast for Dudley and Vernon.

6\. Despite how surely she claims it, she never hated Harry Potter in the beginning. When the chubby baby with dark tufts of hair and a jagged lightning scar on his forehead landed on her doorstep, she desperately wanted to hate him. "Give it ten years," she thought venomously. No matter what she did, eventually Dumbledore would steal him away in the same way he came and he would ride broomsticks, cast spells and forget the family who loved him. No matter how much she willed herself to, no matter how much sense it made, she could never hate him.

7\. She stops loving Harry one day as she watches him and Dudley play, together, sharing giggles and games, but entirely separate. As they push tin trains through dusty dirt track and muddy dirt, their faces light up with glee. One of the train breaks, Harry picks the train up, bewildered, a sob echoing across the park. He clutches the tiny toy in his hands tightly, and somehow, he fixes it. He doesn't know how he did it and no one notices. Dudley is contently playing with his own train in the mud, completely unperturbed. Memories bubble up uncomfortably in her chest and Petunia's heart lurches. How could she have thought he would be any different?

8\. When she looks at Harry, she sees Lily. She sees big, curious green eyes which burn you a little when you look at them too long - dark pits of fire and passion, but soft and warm, welcoming, too. She sees special celebration dinners when Lily comes back in the holidays. She sees how her parents doted on Lily, hanging on her every word, their eyes lighting up with pride as she rattled off details of her strange classes.

Despite her guilt, she doesn't regret it. Maybe that makes her a bad person. She doesn't mind.

She locks him in the cupboard, feeding him on a diet of leftovers and raising him on Dudley's hand-me-downs and crumbs of praise which come few and far between. As long as Dudley knows he's special, so loveable, he won't be left to feel worthless later. Its better that way, she thinks. In a few years time, Dudley would only get hurt by Harry abandoning him. She refuses to have that feeling in common with her son.

9\. And when they move to a cul-des-ac in the suburbs after the war, while she moves through the motions with her life, chatting away vapidly with her friends and slaving over household chores, she wonders. She wonders what would have happened if Lily had never got her letter. Wonders what life would be like if spells and potions and witches and wizards had never intruded upon their happy, decidedly normal lives.


End file.
